


Girls' Night Out

by skieswideopen



Category: due South
Genre: Gen, Girls' Night Out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 13:13:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/598158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skieswideopen/pseuds/skieswideopen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frannie and Maggie go out for drinks while Maggie is in town to testify against her husband's killers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Girls' Night Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Luzula](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luzula/gifts).



Francesca was sitting on a bench outside the courtroom when Maggie finally emerged. She stood up when she saw Maggie and came over, tucking her purse under her arm.

"You look like you need a drink," she said.

Maggie shook her head. "Thank you, but I don't--" she began, looking around. She knew she had seen Ben and Ray in the courtroom while she was testifying...

"They're working," Francesca said. "Something about someone conning prisoners' families? Someone asked Fraser for help, and well, you know how he is."

Maggie did. 

"We can probably try to find them if you want to," Francesca added. 

Maggie considered it for a moment. Work was always a good distraction, and there was a certain appeal to the idea of working a case with her brother that wasn't quite so...personal. 

But Francesca was looking at her with an expression of half-concealed hope that Maggie couldn't quite interpret, and well, it had been kind of her to wait. Repaying that kindness by running off at her first chance seemed discourteous. Besides, she really was tired. Testifying about the Torelli brothers...about Casey...had been more draining than she'd expected. "I could use a break."

Francesca relaxed into a smile. "I know the perfect place."

**_Bar Nuevo_**

Maggie took another sip of cranberry juice and shifted imperceptibly in her seat. She knew she looked out of place sitting straight-backed in her blue uniform--she'd declined Francesca's offer to take her back to her hotel to change--but she wasn't sure how anyone managed to relax sitting on these hard, metal chairs. The whole bar was metal and glass in stark colours and odd angles. She suspected it probably looked trendy to most of the patrons, but to her it just looked cold.

"If you want him, you have to go after him," Francesca was saying, gesturing with her drink for emphasis. 

Maggie had to strain to hear her over the music pumping through the bar. Just before pulling her inside, Francesca had informed Maggie that this was the "in" place for young executives looking for an after-work drink. An hour later, Maggie had decided this was because the music was loud enough that you could say just about anything and be able to deny it later. Or have an excuse not to talk at all by claiming you couldn't hear, which was what Maggie was tempted to do now. 

"Okay, maybe not right now," Francesca added hurriedly, apparently catching her expression, "since you just testified against your husband's killers and all. I'm just saying, he's a man, and men aren't all that bright about these things. They don't always know what they want."

"Is that what you would do?" Maggie asked. "Go after him?"

"Absolutely! It's the only way to get what you want. Like in high school. There was this guy, Donald--he was a power forward on the basketball team. Totally hot. And I knew he was never going to notice me on his own. So one day I put on my best skirt and shirt and tracked him down in the parking lot just before a game." She smiled widely. "He knew who I was after that."

"I can imagine," Maggie said. "Did things work out with him?"

Francesca shrugged philosophically. "For a while. You know how it goes." She paused to take a long drink of wine. "Of course, you probably didn't need to do that kind of thing. I mean, look at you. Guys were probably falling all over themselves in high school trying to get you to go out with them."

Maggie shook her head. "I never went to high school. I was mostly taught at home."

"You learned everything from your mother?" Francesca asked. She looked impressed.

"Or just reading on my own," Maggie agreed. Truthfully, while her mother had taught her a plethora of hunting and survival skills, she'd outgrown what her mother could teach her from books at fairly young age.

"So no boys chasing after you."

"A couple," Maggie admitted. "But I knew I was going to leave, so…"

"Like Fraser, huh? Always knew you were going to be a Mountie?"

"Yes." She had always known, although thinking about it, Maggie wasn't sure why. Perhaps the idea had emerged from her father's barely-remembered visits when she was young. Early imprinting? 

"All I wanted in high school was to find a husband and get married," Francesca said. "And look how that worked out. I think your idea was better. I should have focused on a career instead."

"Ben said you used to be married."

Francesca's eyes widened in surprise, then she laughed. "I forgot he knew about that. But I guess Frase never forgets anything, does he? Yeah, I got married a couple of years after high school. A guy I met while I was taking night classes."

"What happened?" Maggie asked.

"It was a bad idea from the beginning. I kind of knew that, but I told myself things would get better. I just...I really wanted out of my parents' house, y' know? Wanted to have my own place. Get started on my life."

Maggie nodded. She'd seen other girls like that. Had known a few growing up, here and there. Pinning all the hopes for their lives on someone else.

"Things were okay for a while," Francesca continued, "but then the fighting started. He liked to go to bars. And I was okay with that! That's something men do. But it shouldn't be every night, and I told him that. A husband and wife should have dinner together every once in a while. And he didn't like it. Then he started coming home with lipstick on his collar, and soon after he ran off with some bimbo." She sighed. "We didn't even make it a year."

"I'm sorry."

"Ancient history," Francesca said. She looked down at her empty wineglass. "I'm hungry. Wanna grab some dinner?"

**_Scarpelli's_**

"Best Italian in the city," Francesca said enthusiastically as they waited for their table. "Seriously, you've never had Puttanesca like this. Well, unless you've had my mother's. I mean, nobody cooks Italian like Ma, but Scarpelli's is a pretty close second."

The menu seemed to support Francesca's claims. It was a dizzying array of choices, including a number of dishes Maggie had only read about.

"So how are you enjoying Chicago this time?" Francesca asked. "You know, now that you've had time to get used to it a bit."

"I suppose there are a few advantages to visiting the city," Maggie admitted, still reading. "We don't have this kind of variety at home."

Francesca shuddered dramatically. "I can't imagine living somewhere without restaurants."

"Oh, Inuvik has restaurants," Maggie assured her. "Just not as many."

"Nowhere has a place like Scarpelli's. Except Italy. You should have seen Ray after they told he was banned."

Maggie lifted a surprised eyebrow. "Ray was banned from here?"

"Yeah. Oh, not...I mean…." Francesca hesitated, then continued in a low voice. "Do you know about…?" She waved an expressive hand.

The two Rays, Maggie realized. Ben had explained that to her--and sworn her to secrecy--when she'd realized that some of his stories about his life in Chicago didn't quite match up. "Ben told me."

Francesca looked relieved. "Right. So. Yeah. My brother was banned after he got into a big fight here with Frank Zuko. Fraser was here too, but of course, they didn't ban him." 

"Because he wasn't involved in the fight?"

"Oh no, he was! He wouldn't have let Ray go out there on his own. But everyone knew it wasn't his fault. I mean, Fraser doesn't start that kind of thing."

Of course not. Not unless it was in the cause of justice. Maggie didn't either, although she'd once been the unintentional cause of such a fight.

"Ray got back at Frank Zuko later on, though," Francesca said. She frowned into her wineglass. "I’m not sure I was supposed to tell anyone that."

"I won't tell," Maggie promised. It was an easy promise to make. She had no idea who Frank Zuko was and no one--besides Ben, who probably already knew--to tell.

The food, when it arrived, was as good as promised. As she ate, Maggie wondered idly how long Ben would be posted down here, and whether he might be amenable to her visiting again.

"Thank you," she told Francesca at the end of the meal. "That was quite tasty."

"I knew you'd like Scarpelli's," Francesca said. She set her napkin down on the table. "Ready for the next stop?"

"Next stop?" Maggie said weakly.

"It's not a proper girls' night out if you stop with dinner," Francesca said. "Besides, you haven't had your drink yet. Cranberry juice doesn't count." She stood up. "Come on!"

**_The Dovecot_**

The new bar was well-lit and airy, pale marble and warm wood taking the place of metal and glass. Like all of the places they'd visited, it was packed, with a line-up beginning to form outside the door. It still felt foreign to Maggie, but at least it was pleasant to look at it. 

"They have the best cocktails here," Francesca said, waving down a server. "I'll order one for you to get you started."

The drinks came after a lengthy wait.

"Thank you kindly," Maggie said as the server set a glass down in front of her. She studied it a little dubiously. The top layer was a startling shade of green she was quite certain was nowhere to be found in nature; the other layers similarly artificial. The overall effect was reminiscent of a flavoured gelatin dessert she'd once encountered at a church supper. It wasn't a memory she cared to recall.

Across the table, Francesca was watching her expectantly. Maggie offered her a weak smile.

"Isn't it cool?" 

"I've never seen a drink like it," Maggie said honestly. 

"My friend Chandra introduced me to them. She said the layers work because of the precise gravitas of each liquid."

Gravitas? This drink? Maggie pondered for a moment. "I think you mean specific gravity," she said. She had spent most of the previous day with Francesca after the Francesca had seemingly decided that Maggie required company while Ben and Ray were in court testifying at the Torellis brothers' trial. It had given Maggie some practice in interpretation.

"Yeah, sure. Gravity, gravitas…"

"They're not…" Maggie stopped mid-sentence, deciding to let it go. The previous day had also taught her that language corrections were unlikely to be more than temporarily effective, and were frequently ill-received. "Never mind." 

Francesca's own drink was pink and icy, with a bright red cherry on top. She plucked the cherry out and popped it in her mouth. "Try your drink!" she urged.

"I wouldn't if I were you," said a voice directly behind Maggie. Maggie jumped and cursed silently. She'd _talked_ to her father about that.

"I don't trust these fancy umbrella drinks," he said, coming around to stand beside her. "You don't know what they put in them. Besides, I could never figure out why anyone would want to dull their senses with liquor anyway. You never know when you're going to need to be in top form."

"I don't see an umbrella," Maggie murmured rebelliously. She resolutely picked up her drink and took a sip, letting liquid roll over her tongue. After a moment she swallowed quickly, trying not to choke.

"Good, isn't it?" Francesca beamed.

"Well, I don't usually drink…" Maggie equivocated.

Francesca's face fell. "Oh. Sorry. I should have realized--"

"No, no. I never said."

"No, but Fraser doesn't drink either, and the two of you are so much alike…"

"Are we really?" Maggie asked curiously. Before she'd met him, it had never occurred to her to compare herself to the famous (or infamous) Benton Fraser, and while she'd observed some similarities in their investigative techniques during her first trip to Chicago, she'd attributed that to the commonalities in their upbringing and training rather than to any personal parallels.

"Oh yeah," Francesca said enthusiastically.

"Like two peas on a pod," her father agreed. 

"You're just like the female version of Fraser. Except, you know, shorter. And blonder."

"Right." At least there was no danger of them being mistaken for each other.

"Here, give me your drink. We'll get you some orange juice or something. You know, it's kind of strange to think that if your mom had told his… _your_ dad about you, the two of you could have grown up together."

Maggie tried to picture that, having a big brother around to tell her stories and teach her things. She wondered what Ben had been like as a child. Serious and studious, the way he was now? Or had he grown into that? She couldn't envision him as a regular child, any more than she herself had been when compared to the other children she'd occasionally encountered. She couldn't quite picture the three of them living together in that tiny cabin either, although maybe with her father around, they would have lived somewhere larger. Some place he could have visited, when his duties allowed. (She couldn’t picture her fiercely independent mother following Bob from posting to posting the way she'd seen some RCMP spouses do. But clearly that hadn't stopped her parents from seeing each other.)

"Never would have worked," her father said. "Can you imagine your mother taking in another child? Especially a nine-year-old boy she'd never met? She never would have tolerated it! Not that Ben wasn't a good boy, mind you. Well, apart from his habit of running away."

"He ran away?" Maggie asked, too surprised to remember to keep her voice down.

"Oh yes," her father mused. "Three times. Or was it four? I don’t remember. But it was something of a habit of his. Drove his grandparents to distraction. They tended to worry. I told them he'd be fine. Ben knew how to survive in the wilderness. I taught him that." There was a note of pride in that last statement, and Maggie thought about the story she'd heard--from Lieutenant Welsh, not Ben--about a little boy left alone in the woods with flint and granite. She wondered if a daughter would have been given the same treatment, and what might have been so much worse that Ben would run from it.

"Who ran away?" Francesca asked.

"No one," Maggie said. She'd have to ask her father about that later, when they didn't have an audience. "Although my mother might have, if she'd had to manage two kids rather than one."

"Oh, I wouldn't go that far," her father said. "Your mother was a resourceful woman. I'm sure she would have found a way to cope."

"It would have been different," Maggie added. "Growing up with a brother. Having someone else around."

"You were alone a lot, huh?" 

"Quite often."

"I think Fraser was too," Francesca said. "He had a hard time adjusting to being around so many people when he first got here. You should have seen him the first time Ray brought him home for dinner! He was...well, he was a lot like you last night."

Maggie shivered at the memory. Dinner at the Vecchio household had been...boisterous. She hadn't noticed Ben having any trouble fitting in, though. She'd actually been rather impressed by how adroitly he'd headed off an incipient argument between Francesca and Maria. Perhaps it was a matter of determination and practice rather than natural inclination.

"They're good people," her father said. "But Lord are they loud!"

"I didn't notice that you were there," Maggie said quietly. 

"Oh, I popped in for a bit," her father said. "Wanted to see how you were doing with the trial. Ben said you were holding up well. Not that I'd expect any less from you."

Now that he mentioned it, she did remember seeing Ray and Maria giving Ben odd looks the night before. It was somewhat reassuring to know she wasn't the only one who had trouble coping with their father. On the other hand, it probably wouldn't do much for their family's reputation if they became known for talking to thin air.

"So have you had a girls' night out before?" Francesca asked. "I mean, it sounds like you don't have a lot of friends--"

"I have friends," Maggie said. "Inuvik is actually quite large, for the area. Almost three thousand people."

"Too many," her father said. "I don't know how you stand it."

"My high school had over two thousand," Francesca said. She sucked on her straw, lowering her drink noticeably. "So do you do girls' night out in Inuvik?"

"Not generally," Maggie admitted. "My mother and I used to sometimes had a glass of cloudberry wine on Christmas Eve. That was pretty much the only time I drank. Well, and the toast--"

"--to the Queen's health," Francesca finished. "Yeah, I know."

"Your mother made wonderful cloudberry wine," her father said. "We used to have it whenever I stopped by. Just one glass, mind you."

"Drinking with your _mother_ does not count as a girls' night out."

"No, I suppose not." Truthfully, her mother wasn't a topic she wanted to get into tonight. She cast around for a new topic. "How is your pursuit of a career in policing going?" 

"Oh, well..." Francesca began to talk about application procedures and deadlines. Maggie made encouraging noises and listened with half an ear, her attention suddenly captured by an odd movement at the back of the bar. "I'm sure you'll do fine," she said absently. Why was that server--

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of yelling and a falling chair on the other side of the bar. She swung around in time to watch one man knock down another while a third threw himself on top of both. Maggie stood up and took a step toward them before realization struck. Spinning, she ran toward the back of the bar where the suspicious server was already heading out the back door. Maggie followed him out the door and into the alley, footsteps echoing in the dark.

"Stop!" she yelled. She was surprised when he obeyed. Then she saw the gun. Her hand fell automatically to her own hip, and came away empty. _No jurisdiction,_ she remembered abruptly. Her father, she noticed, was nowhere to be seen. Not that he could have done much anyway. "Sir, I need to ask you to put that gun down, keep your hands where I can see them, and wait for the police."

The faux-server grinned and raised the gun a little higher. "Why would I want to do that?"

Maggie straightened her back. "Do you think you could do it? Shoot a woman?" 

"I think a woman goes down just as easy as a man with a bullet in the head."

Maggie swallowed hard and nodded. "Well, you have a point there. But before you shoot, you should know that I'm a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police." 

"So?"

"And my brother is a Mountie too. If you kill me, he will hunt you down. They all will. They'll chase you to the ends of the Earth."

He looked like he was wavering for a moment, then his face firmed up again. "I'll take my chances."

Behind him came a yell. "Hey, fishbrain!" The gunman turned and Maggie closed the space between him. She grabbed his gun arm and forced him to the ground, then looked up at Francesca.

"Could you please get the manager to call the police?"

"Already done," Francesca said. "I figured we'd need them as soon as I saw you run out the door."

The gunman started struggling beneath her boot. Maggie twisted a little harder until he subsided. "Thank you kindly."

**_Holiday Inn_**

"You really are just like your brother," Francesca said. She leaned over from her spot on the extra bed and swiped a fry from the plate that had arrived courtesy of room service. She'd insisted on taking Maggie back to her hotel, despite similar offers from Ben and Ray--both of whom had shown up at the station while Maggie and Francesca were giving their statements. "He does exactly the same thing. Runs into all sorts of dangerous situations with no weapon and no back-up. My brother hated it."

"I forgot I didn't have my gun with me," Maggie confessed.

"Would remembering have stopped you?"

"Probably not. But I might have tried to get above him and drop down instead of telling him to stop."

Francesca shuddered. "What is it about Mounties and heights?"

Maggie grinned and reached for the plate. "You have to be able to overcome fear to be a police officer."

"I know," Francesca said. She piled the pillows one top of each other and leaned back against them, arms behind her head. "Can I tell you something?"

"Sure."

"Promise you won't tell any of the guys?"

Maggie nodded.

"Some days I worry I'm not cut out for police work. And not just because of my hat issues. I mean, the things you do...and not just you. Fraser. Ray. My brother. I mean, I'm good at talking to people and interrogating bad guys, but the running after gunmen? I don't know if I could do that."

"You came after a gunman tonight."

"Yeah, but that was different. I couldn't leave you out there alone."

"Don't Chicago police officers work with partners too?" Maggie asked. "So you'll always have someone to protect. And someone to back you up."

Francesca brightened. "That's true. So you think I can do it?"

"I think you'll be wonderful."

They sat in silence for a moment.

"Are you going to watch the rest of the trial?" Francesca asked.

"As much as I can stay for," Maggie said. "I only have official leave for the time needed to testify, but I took some vacation days so I could see more. It depends how long it runs for, though."

"Maybe we could hang out again before you leave," Francesca said shyly. "I could show you more of the city. We have some other restaurants that are pretty. I mean, they're not Scarpelli's, but--"

"That would be great. Thank you."

"Great," Francesca said. "Maybe one day I'll come visit you. See how you and Fraser live."

Maggie hid a smile at the thought of Francesca Vecchio in high heels on a dogsled or snowshoes, patrolling a trapline. Although maybe she was underestimating her. After all, she hadn't expected Francesca to come after an armed gunman either. "That would be fun," she said. "It's beautiful up there. I'd like to show you around."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Okay," Francesca said. "Then one day I'll do it."

"I'm looking forward to it."


End file.
